With most of the Nawab’s army held back by the conspirators, Clive won in an afternoon; Mir Jafar was made Nawab and the Company became the real power in Bengal.
01The bargain before the battle
Siraj-ud-Daulah had taken Calcutta in 1756, and Clive and Admiral Watson took it back in early 1757. Clive then made a secret compact with the Nawab’s own commander Mir Jafar, the banking house of Jagat Seth and the merchant Amir Chand: the Company would make Mir Jafar Nawab, and he would pay it and its officers vast sums. On 23 June Clive’s army of about 3,000, some 800 of them Europeans and the rest sepoys, with ten guns, stood in a mango grove at Palashi facing an army that the Company’s own historian Orme put at about 50,000.
02Mir Madan falls
Only the Nawab’s loyal commanders, Mir Madan and the Hindu general Mohan Lal, with a small French gun party, pressed the attack. A rain shower soaked the Nawab’s powder while Clive’s men covered theirs. Then a cannon ball killed Mir Madan. On the advice of Mir Jafar, Siraj ordered his army back to camp; Mir Jafar, Yar Lutf Khan and Rai Durlabh kept their great divisions still. Clive advanced, the retreat became a rout, and the Nawab fled to Murshidabad. He was caught and killed on 2 July by the men of Mir Jafar’s son Miran.
Plassey put Bengal’s wealth in Company hands; the treasure it took in the years after paid for the armies that conquered the rest of Bharat.